Tree Tangle
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: She was making enough noise to send every creature within a good half mile of her skittering away in the opposite direction.


**Tree Tangle**

**Summary: **She was making enough noise to send every creature within a good half mile of her skittering away in the opposite direction.

**Notes: **A tiny ficlet, inspired from out of nowhere really, for a moment in the childhood of Marian and Robin.

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She was making enough noise to send every creature within a good half mile of her skittering away in the opposite direction. It really wasn't hard to see why, when he got close enough.

"Problem, Marian?" Robin called up from the base of the tree.

"I am fine," she had said snapped back, instant and defensive. Only looking down once, before her eyes went back to hot-hands. Her shoulders fine and tight. It might have been convincing, if not for the angry sniffle that followed it.

"You look quite caught from here." He said, not quite to laughing, as he leaned on his bow.

Marian didn't even favor him with a response this time. She simply seemed to start tugging harder. Her skirts tangled up in the climbing vine of a thorn plant wrapped around most of the tree. It was a marvel she'd gotten even to the lowest branches, through so much of it, before getting trapped.

"You could ask for help, you know," Robin said, after another thirty seconds watching the small girl.

There was nowhere to place her weight or shift when she freed one part or another. So that when she managed deftly to free some part of skirt or petticoat, she only gave another two or three sections to the war at the same time.

It was when her hands began to tremble, tugging more and more frantically, as much as she could without tearing the cloth, and her breath was beginning to shake. Her hair falling in her eyes, getting partially tangled next, as well.

"Oh, hold still already" Robin said, tossing the bow at the bottom of the tree, and pulling off his quiver. Before he, too. was headed up the thorny caped tree. At least she had decided to follow his last exasperated set of words, trembling, but no long fighting.

He'd stuck his hand twice by the time he got to her, having little room to keep his own weight in the middle of the tree with no branches as he began to pluck free her skirts with his free hand. "Where is your nurse?"

"I am fine without my nurse," Marian said, finding the fire to keep her small chin up, even as she was watching him and his hands with wide blue-eyes. Trying suddenly to move again, as he was bunching up parts of her skirt.

"Yes, fine. That is exactly what you look now." He grumbled something she thought couldn't possibly be swearing, not from a Lord's son, before pulling his thumb to his mouth, shaking his head. "If you would stop struggling, this would go faster. Unless your aim is for us to both be stuck here."

She stopped moving, and talking apparently too. He was all too glad to let her glare at the tree, while he worked at her skirts and the carpet of climbing thorns. "Alright, move your right foot back on to my shoulder, so I can work on the other side. Then, you can climb on my back and we can get you back to the ground."

"What?" Marian looked down. "That would hardly be appropriate."

"More or less appropriate than being tangled in a tree the rest of your life?" Came from the brown head of hair, shaking back and forth as her skirts were pushed behind his head, trying to turn, what looked impossibly like he was weightlessly at ease in the tree.

But she did move. Stepping gingerly back onto his shoulder, careful and worried. And what more, there was a quiet, dreadful confession. "My father is going kill me."

"The Good Sheriff?" Robin chuckled, his fingers deftly plucked cloth from spikes. "I'm certain he'll be just as grateful that you are not treed like a newborn barn kitten that next time he sees you."

"This dress was new," she said, softer and dismal.

"Your dress will be fine, Marian." His shoulders shook, the smallest, current tremble that had been in his voice as well, but, all that came up was that he chose to say. "Okay, now. Your other foot. Try to climb down on to my back with getting yourself retangled."

That was not as easy as it looked. When the foot holds she was supposed to use were a boy, half again her age and a Lord and an Earl, at that and not a tree. When she nearly slipped before her footing found his thigh. Gratitude surging at the fact he might never see how red her face was went it was pressed into his shoulder.

but then they were on the ground, and rather than any words, that his raised brow seemed inclined to be waiting for, Marian had turned to looking at her skirts. The heavy brocade, with all its careful decorative stitching, which was the only one she-could look at properly now.

Amazement in her voice as she looked back up. "It's barely scratched."

"i told you." he shook his head, smiling at her. "It was mostly the white ones. They have a few small rips, that couldn't be helped, but even those could probably be mended easily."

He'd half bent, meaning to gather his bow, entirely unexpecting of the sudden, exuberant launch of Marian herself. 1 ler arms gathering around his neck, and face pressing into his neck. "Oh, Robin! Thank you!"

He laughed, nearly falling over, but catching himself, and the small girl who had thrown herself upon him with no question to it this time. The surprise and smugness combined in the laugh and smile he had as she pulled away, looking up.

It was true, what they were saying wasn't it? Even with her eyelashes still fringed with the lasting echo of her frustrated tears, she was lovely. She was going to grow into being lovely, if not lovelier than the late Good Lady Kate, her mother.

Robin detached himself still beaming, a little quickly, focused to turning to pick up his weapons again. "No more trees, then?"

"Alright," He looked up surprised, at her quick acceptance.

But if the burgeoning beauty of The Good Sheriffs young daughter was undeniable, so was the undamaged willful promise in the brightness of how her mouth curved as she followed that up with. "No more trees today."


End file.
